


City of Stone and Song

by potatoesanddreams



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Book: The Fall of Gondolin, Gen, Gondolin, Tolkien Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:07:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21932698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potatoesanddreams/pseuds/potatoesanddreams
Summary: The sunlight glinted so sharply off the white walls and towers that Tuor was forced to avert his eyes. He turned them back again, well before he could look without pain. It was – not impossible, but absurd to gaze at anything but that city, a great crown set on the mounded hill.Written for the 2019 Tolkien Secret Santa gift exchange.
Relationships: Tuor & Voronwë
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12
Collections: Tolkien Secret Santa 2019





	City of Stone and Song

**Author's Note:**

> Set during and immediately after the end of Tolkien's last, incomplete version of the Fall of Gondolin.
> 
> A gift for huanestly - I hope it suits you well!

The sunlight glinted so sharply off the white walls and towers that Tuor was forced to avert his eyes. He turned them back again, well before he could look without pain. It was – not impossible, but absurd to gaze at anything but that city, a great crown set on the mounded hill. Its walls were the color of the snow upon the surrounding plain, and like snow they gleamed and glittered in the sun, so that amid their whiteness he saw many colors shine in ever-vanishing motes of light. Beyond the walls the city mounted high on the slopes of its hill, and all was built of the same white stone. Towers stood at intervals beyond the walls; some were wound about with high staircases, and some with vines still green despite the bitter cold. Still others stood straight and smooth and tall, their evenness only broken by the tapered windows cut into their walls; and within these windows Tuor thought he saw the glint of colored glass. One tower was taller than the rest; it stood in a high place upon the hill, and the other towers stood before it like courtiers before their king. The high tower was built of white stone like the rest, but it was girdled about with a thick, spiraling ribbon of burnished gold, which shone so fiercely in the sunlight that Tuor’s eyes stung to look at it.

Ecthelion the Gate-Warden spoke then, and at first it seemed to Tuor that he heard his words from underwater, or at the moment of waking from a heavy slumber. But he drew his gaze away at last from the city, and realized then that he had let his gray mantle slip from his shoulders, and it lay like a wind-stirred tide-pool about his feet, while his armor gleamed in the sun as brightly as did Gondolin. And Ecthelion now hailed him as the messenger of Ulmo in truth.

Tuor said, or heard his own voice saying, “I must speak to the king.”

Ecthelion bowed. He turned away from Tuor, moving as if in a dream, and with a few words sent one of his soldiers back toward the Great Gate. She set out, her movements as curiously slow as Ecthelion’s had been, and now Tuor saw that the host of soldiers clad in many colors all stood as if in a trance, and all their eyes were fixed upon his armor of silver and gold, even as his own eyes had been fixed on Gondolin. Tuor himself had not yet entirely woken from that reverie, and when he felt someone touch his arm he startled, and turned swiftly.

Voronwë stood beside him with a hand still resting on Tuor’s elbow, and the joy was fierce in his eyes. Of all who waited there between mountains and plain, he was the only one who seemed to realize he was awake. “Now,” he said to Tuor, “you will know why it is I love Gondolin so dearly.”

Tuor looked again towards the shining city. “I know already,” he murmured.

“No,” said Voronwë, “not until you have entered in.”

From the Great Gate behind them came the sudden ringing of trumpets. Even as the echoes died away they heard an answering blast, faint with distance, yet clear and piercing still. The soldier whom Ecthelion had sent away returned, leading two tall horses – a blue roan and a dapple gray. She brought them before Ecthelion, who took hold of each set of reins and offered them to Tuor and Voronwë. “Our watch here will last yet many days,” he said to them, “and you are no longer prisoners, to require a guard. They will be startled in the city at the presence of a Man, but we have signaled them that you are friends, and when they see your armor none shall hinder you. Novaer – farewell!”

He bowed once more, and turned away, directing the great host of guards to return to their posts at the Seven Gates. But Tuor mounted the blue roan, and Voronwë the dapple gray, and side by side they rode for Gondolin. And Voronwë laughed for joy to return at long last to the city of his heart. But Tuor was quiet, and his own heart brimmed with a wondering gladness; for he felt as though he too were returning home.


End file.
